Senator KENNEDY. So, therefore, the criteria which has been established in this proposed law, is based solely on skills which are especially advantageous to the United States Secretary WIRTZ. Yes. Senator KENNEDY. It is based on the critical needs of our country and of the labor market. And it is your firm conviction this criteria does not pertain in any way to either the ethnic or racial background of the applicants themselves? Secretary WIRTZ. Without qualification. Senator KENNEDY. This subcommittee expresses its great appreciation to the Secretary, and his very able assistants, for appearing here today and propounding their views. Thank you for coming here, Mr. Secretary. The subcommittee will recess now to commence again on Monday. Next week we will hear from a number of Senators, as well as the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare and the Surgeon General. (Whereupon, at 12:35 p.m. the subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene at 10 a.m. on Monday, March 1, 1965.) 52-441-65-pt. 1——9 IMMIGRATION MONDAY, MARCH 1, 1965 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION, OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10:30 a.m., in room 4232, New Senate Office Building, Senator Kennedy of Massachusetts presiding. Present: Senators Kennedy, Ervin, and Fong. Also present: Fred M. Mesmer, staff director; Drury H. Blair, staff member; and William A. Stevens, minority staff member. Senator KENNEDY. The subcommittee will come to order. Senator Claiborne Pell and Senator Walter Mondale, previously scheduled to be heard today, will be unable to appear. But we do have with us the Honorable Hugh Scott, of Pennsylvania, who is a cosponsor of S. 500. Senator Scott, we welcome you to this hearing and ask you to proceed. STATEMENT OF HON. HUGH SCOTT, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA Senator Scorr. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I regret that I am delayed. I am afraid I was counting on one of the other Senators starting ahead of me. As a cosponsor of S. 500, I respectfully urge the subcommittee to act favorably on this long overdue and much needed reform of our immigration laws. It is particularly important that we eliminate the discriminatory national origins quota system which, based on the national origins of our population in 1920, says in effect that the people who produced a Michelangelo, a Plato, a Kosciuszko, are less welcome in America than people who come from other parts of the world. I have opposed this repugnant philosophy throughout my public career. Indeed, one of the first bills which I introduced in this Congress was a bill to reform our immigration laws and eliminate the national origins quota system. I will support and fight for passage of any bill which will remove from our immigration laws the degrading and un-American concept of judging a man on the basis of his place of birth or racial ancestry. S. 500, which you are now considering, would judge immigrants on their skills, on the basis of what they can accomplish, and attempt to reunite families of people already in America. It would bring our immigration laws into line with our Nation's needs and with its moral and ethical principles, and would, as I am sure the committee knows, not greatly increase the total number of immigrants entering annually. With further reference to S. 436, may I say that there are a number of similarities in this bill to S. 500. In fact, there is very little substantive difference. In this connection, I would like to ask the committee's permission to include a letter from the Library of Congress from Mr. James W. Kelley, Legislative Reference Service, to me under date of February 9, 1965, containing an analysis of S. 436, contrasting it with S. 500. Senator KENNEDY. Without objection it is so ordered. (The letter referred to is as follows:) To: Hon. Hugh Scott. THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE SERVICE, Washington, D.C., February 9, 1965. From: Education and Public Welfare Division. This is in answer to your letter of January 29, 1965, requesting a section-bysection analysis of S. 436, amending the Immigration and Nationality Act, which you introduced January 12, 1965. In discussing the bill with Mr. Murphy, your legislative assistant, it was agreed that a description of the principle differences between your bill and S. 500, the administration's immigration bill, which you cosponsored, would be more useful to you than a section-by-section analysis. There is very littie substantive difference between your bill and the administration bill. In addition to some differences which are purely a matter of draftsmanship, the following are the substantive differences between the bills. 1. The authority granted to the President to reserve portions of the quota reserve pool to avoid hardship resulting from changes in the quota system and for refugees was changed in the current administration bill. The administration bill in the 88th Congress authorized the President to reserve up to 50 percent and 20 percent of the quota reserve for these two purposes. The current administration bill, S. 500, reduces these amounts to 30 percent and 10 percent, respectively. This change conforms to a recommendation made by Attorney General Kennedy during his testimony last year at hearings on immigration before the House Judiciary Subcommittee No. 1, that the percentages be decreased in such amounts. S. 436 does not reflect this change, but retains the 50 percent and 20 percent amounts of the administration bill of the 88th Congress. This authority is contained in the proposed new section 201 (f) (3), beginning on line 20, page 5 of S. 436. 2. Section 1(b) of S. 436 contains an amendment that is not contained in S. 500. This is an amendment to section 201(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act which prescribes the procedure for determining annual quotas. The amendments made by the bill are designed to provide for changes in the quota system made by the bill. Provision is made for the determination of quotas before the date on which reduced quotas are to go into effect and for revision of the quotas for each of the 4 subsequent years. 3. Section 5 of S. 436 fails to reflect a change in the administration bill. This change was made to correct an apparent oversight in the drafting of the administration bill in the 88th Congress. The purpose of this amendment is to prohibit nonquota immigrants from being issued quota visas and thus utilizing quota numbers to the detriment of quota imigrants and also to allow quota visas issued to but unused by an applicant to be issued to a second applicant. Section 5 of S. 436, like the administration bill in the 88th Congress, amends only section 207 of the Immigration and Nationality Act but fails to amend section 201 (d) of the act which specifically allows nonquota immigrants to receive quota visas. S. 500 achieves the intended purpose by amending both sections of the Act. Section 5 of S. 500 amends 201 (d) of the act by prohibiting such visa issuances and section 7 amends section 207 of the act to allow previously issued but unused quota numbers to be reissued to second applicants. 4. Section 9 of S. 436 is the same as section 9 of the administration bill in the 88th Congress. The comparable section (sec. 11) of S. 500 has been modified, chiefly by rewriting present section 204(d) of the act, which relates to the procedure for determining eligibility for nonquota or preferred status. This subsection, as rewritten and redesignated as subsection (d) in S. 500, has a new clause added requiring the Attorney General to report to Congress on each skilled alien petition approved under section 203(a)(1) of the act. In addition, S. 436 contains a provision not in either administration bill which appears to be in error. Section 9(a) (5) on page 12, line 7, provides for amending the "third sentence" in section 204 (c) of the act. Section 204 (c) has no third sentence. 5. Section 10 (a) of S. 436 contains what appears to be a necessary conforming amendment to section 205 (a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which is lacking in both administration bills. This amendment makes it clear that section 205, relating to the procedure for granting nonquota or preference status by reason of relationship, applies only to fourth preference immigrants "by reason of relationships" but not to the new category of fourth preference immigrants created by the bill whose preference is dependent upon their ability to fill labor shortages in the United States. The procedure for granting preference status to this latter group has been incorporated into section 204 of the act by both S. 436 and S. 500. 6. Section 15 of S. 436 has the same effect as section 15 of the administration bill in the 88th Congress but does not contain an added amendment in the comparable section (sec. 17) of S. 500, which substitutes the term "mentally retarded" for the present term "feebleminded," as a bar to admission into the United States. 7. Section 16(c) of S. 436, establishing the Immigration Board, contains a provision not in S. 500 authorizing Federal agencies to donate or loan employee services and materials to the Board. 8. S. 436 does not contain a provision similar to section 20 of S. 500 amending section 272 of the Immigration and Nationality Act which imposes a penalty against carriers bringing to the United States certain excludable aliens, so as to make the section conform with changes made by the bill and section 11 of the act of September 26, 1961. JAMES W. KELLEY. Senator SCOTT. That concludes my testimony, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I would also like to ask the consent of the committee to include a copy of my bill, S. 436. Senator KENNEDY. Without objection it is so ordered. (S. 436 is as follows:) [S. 436, 89th Cong., 1st sess.] A BILL To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act, and for other purposes Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That (a) section 201(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1151 (a)) be amended to read as follows: "SEC. 201. (a) (1) Subject to the provisions of paragraph (2), the annual quota of any quota area shall be the same quota heretofore determined under the provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act prior to the effective date of the Immigration Amendments Act of 1965: Provided, That the minimum quota for any quota area shall be two hundred. "(2) Beginning with the first fiscal year commencing after the enactment of the Immigration Amendments Act of 1965 and continuing during each of the next four succeeding fiscal years the annual quota of every quota area for each such fiscal year shall be reduced by 20 per centum of its present number, as determined immediately prior to the effective date of the Immigration Amendments Act of 1965. during each such fiscal year. The quota numbers so deducted from quotas of quota areas shall be assigned annually thereafter to the quota reserve established by subsection (f) of this section and shall be available for distribution in accordance with the provisions thereof." (b) Section 201(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1151 (b)) is amended to read as follows: "(b) Each determination of the annual quota of any quota area shall be made by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Commerce, and the Attorney General, |